


two halves.

by midnight_files



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Health Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:01:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22214476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnight_files/pseuds/midnight_files
Summary: felix can't run away anymore.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin & Lee Felix, Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Felix
Comments: 5
Kudos: 60





	two halves.

**Author's Note:**

> TW: implications of mental health problems / health issues.

_ “Did you change your hair?” _

Felix grins at the inquiry, shaking his head to allow his lilac tresses to shuffle gently, smiling at Chan who’s squinting at him in an attempt to see through the terrible lighting. “Yeah, it’s light purple now.”

_ “Nice, dude! Whose idea was it?” _

“Mom’s,” Felix replies with a nonchalant shrug, sitting on the reclining seat of his couch and shifting the laptop from the coffee table to his lap. From what he can see, Chan seems to be video calling him from the studio at his university. He’s donning that same gray sweatshirt a size too big that Felix would often steal whenever he’d spent the night at Chan’s dorm and through the reflection of the glass, he can catch sight of the rows of empty water bottles on Chan’s table, signalling he’d been there for hours. “You shouldn’t overwork yourself.”

_ “I’m fine. I’m almost done! Just gotta get this last run down.” _

“Whatever you say,” Felix mumbles in response, heaving a sigh afterwards. He was no longer there to nag Chan to head home and though he’d given the responsibility over to Woojin, the eldest was surely occupied with his own schedules most of the time. “How’s everyone doing?”

_ “They’re good! Jisung and Changbin finished their productions a few hours ago and seemed satisfied. Seungmin’s still top of his class and so is Woojin. Minho snagged captain of our modern dance team, finally. Remember how heated him and his underclassman, Jeno, were over it? Oh, also! Jeongin’s application got accepted! How cool is that?” _

“Wow, that’s great! So he’ll be dorming with Seungmin, won’t he?” Felix inquires, eyebrows raised though he had no doubt Jeongin would’ve made it into the university. “That’s what he told me last time I checked up on him.”

_ “Oh, yeah. Seungmin’s got a spare bed and they’ve sent in the housing request already. I don’t know why Jeongin wants to room with him, honestly, Seungmin’s always bothering him.” _

“I don’t think he’ll bother him as much. He’ll probably be studying for most of it,” Felix replies with a chortle, watching Chan stare at him skeptically before reluctantly agreeing to the comment. “Also, uh… you skipped over Hyunjin?”

_ “Felix. Are you still hung up over him?” _

The question humiliates him, even if that isn’t Chan’s intent and he drops his phone, from where he’d been looking through Hyunjin’s instagram updates to derive an answer to his own question by himself, “No, I just wanna know how he’s been, you know. He was my friend first, before ex.”

_ “The answer is still the same each time you ask it, Felix. He misses you. You really should’ve discussed the gap year with him before suddenly cutting ties and flying back. It took a toll on him, but he’s doing better now because of Jisung and Woojin’s excessive worrying.” _

“You know I couldn’t tell him,” Felix responds, same as always, and Chan only pinches the bridge of his nose. Momentarily, the call lags and Felix has to see his look of disappointment a second too long and he’s prompted to add on, “I don’t think about him as often anymore.”

_ “That’s a lie, Lix, and you know it. Hyunjin tells me you still watch his instagram stories, but won’t reply to his texts.” _

He’s been caught. Despite being the one to end things, Felix finds himself constantly browsing Hyunjin’s social media to make sure he’s alright. He wants to know Hyunjin is picking himself up, forgetting him, finding someone new.

But at the same time, he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to see Hyunjin moving on from him, resenting him, and erasing him from his life.

_ “Why don’t you just come back? Pursue dance with him.” _

“I can’t,” Felix claims and then watches as Chan’s expression changes from stressed to worrisome and he knows that his breathing is uneven and that Chan’s caught on to how his anxiety levels are rising. Abruptly, he ends the call and tosses his laptop onto the cushioned surface to his left, tugging his hoodie over his head and bringing his knees to his chest as he attempts to steady his breathing.

What was he supposed to say when he went back?  _ Hey, sorry for breaking your heart over text but I haven’t stopped thinking about you, maybe we could grab some coffee together? _

Felix wasn’t even sure if he  _ wanted _ to go back. His parents had discussed that he’d be better off, financially, if he went to a community college in Australia and expressed that they’d missed him dearly. Besides, he wasn’t sure he could face Hyunjin and living everyday as a mission to escape Hyunjin’s presence would be torture, especially since they were in the same department.

But he wants to see Hyunjin, even if just one last time. He wants to hold his hand, to embrace him, to give him the final fleeting kiss he was too cowardly to do all those months ago when he’d impulsively bought a ticket back home.

And despite how unforgivable his actions were, he knows Hyunjin would let him do all of those things because that’s just how he is. Hyunjin had never really been one to hold a grudge against him and every disagreement they’d ever had was forgotten in mere minutes, replaced with words of reassurance and gestures of affection. So yes, Felix is aware that Chan’s right, that Hyunjin misses him and that he should go back and work towards completing his performing arts classes with the brunette, but he can’t bring himself to. 

Shakily, Felix reaches upwards to touch the sterling silver necklace hanging by his collarbones. The engravement of Hyunjin’s initial is smooth under the pad of his thumb and the curves on the side of the pendent—it’s half of a heart, Felix had bought them a matching set for Christmas—taunt him because he knows he won’t be able to make it whole again.

Hyunjin had still been wearing it in his last instagram update, a picture of him and Yeji at an art exhibition. Felix tries not to think too much about it, knows he’s still the first one in Hyunjin’s heart so long as he wears that necklace, but when would he finally take it off?

The pill is hard to swallow, just like the one Felix takes with a glass of water after finishing his boiled eggs. He hates pills; the way they leave a lingering feeling at the base of his throat is a lot like how Hyunjin’s left his imprint on Felix’s train of thoughts, except Felix doesn’t mind the latter.

He eyes his second medication with hesitation and reluctance, wanting anything but the prodding feeling already irritating him from the first pill. Shrugging it off, he places the bottles away in the cabinet and decides he won’t take one for today. He hadn’t taken one yesterday and nothing had happened, nor the day before that—hell, not even a week before that—and so it’d be fine.

A ghost of a smile appears on his face as he remembers Hyunjin’s morning texts grilling him about if he’s taken his medication for the day and telling him to swear it on their relationship, as it was the most important thing for both of them. He remembers that whenever Hyunjin would spent the night at his, the next morning he’d be up before him, making sunny side eggs to help with the aforementioned perception of something being stuck in his throat.

“ _ There are other ways I can help with that _ ,” Felix recites his ex-boyfriend, grimacing at how accurately he can picture Hyunjin’s cheeky facial expression. “Absolutely not, Jinnie.”

It’s hard, really, waking up in the morning and not reading those cheesy texts from a clearly half-asleep Hyunjin and being excessively called ‘baby’ when Felix is feeling even the slightest bit upset. There’s also a slight confusion Felix is met with when he has nobody to complain to about his fatigue and blaring headaches, nobody to hear his jokes about his anemia and hospital visits.  _ I’m gonna have to start paying rent soon _ , he’d say, each time he’d find himself back in the uncomfortable hospital bedding. The layers of his nails are slowly thinning until Felix can pick away at them and he’s sure that blacking out in the shower frequently is far from normal, but he can’t find the motivation to fix himself.

He turns to writing poems for Hyunjin as a distraction, poems that’ll never make their way to him, but then senses a reoccuring theme of angst and symbols he’s aware signify problems worse than what he’s accepting right now. He doesn’t want to talk about them, doesn’t want to think about them, doesn’t want to acknowledge them because doing any of that only makes things  _ real. _ He doesn’t want this, whatever  _ this _ is, to be real.

The high pitched ringing of his laptop reels him back into reality and he doesn’t have to look at the screen to know that it’s Chan worriedly checking up on him. Slowly, he makes his way back to the sofa, relaxing in his seat before tugging the device onto his lap and pressing the accept button, reassurance speech on the tip of his tongue.

“I’m fi—”

There’s no concerned face on the screen to greet him, only a silver chain with half a broken heart staring back at him until it lowers and lowers, ultimately disappearing and being replaced with the face he’d least expected to see.

_ “Felix.” _

**Author's Note:**

> another skz fic and it's hyunlix again.. KJFKSD.  
> what can i say, i love hyunjin and i love felix!  
> sorry this was so angsty but i tried to make up for it with a little bit of an open ending at the end.  
> leave comments please! they motivate me haha.
> 
>   
>  [ twt. ](https://twitter.com/sookais_)


End file.
